U.S. DECLARES ITS COURSE IS TO PROTECT CHILDREN

When government desires to wrest power from
its citizenry in this day, all it must do is construct the flimsiest
scenario in the name of protecting the children. Who, after all,
would be against preserving the innocence and physical welfare of a
child? Not even the basest of humanity would ever allow themselves to
appear openly as less than solicitous of a child's well-being--so
intense has the worship of children become in this society. "The
children! We must save the children!" they cry. These arguments have
become such extreme hot-button items in the American psyche that even
the most vocal proponents of personal liberty fall strangely silent
when the magical incantation of child welfare is invoked.

The Communications Decency Act (CDA), a
nearly 200 page document signed into law February 1st of this year by
President Clinton, uses this premise as its sole supporting argument.
In its severest application it becomes a felony, punishable by up to
six years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine to introduce into the
Worldwide Web or the Internet any material accessible to minors that
is considered "indecent". The fact that a three judge panel in a
Philadelphia Federal Court has put a restraining order on its
implementation is of little consequence. At issue are the methods
currently being used by our government to create public acceptance of
restrictive and oppressive legislation. Children have become little
more than pawns in the hands of American legislators for the purpose
of oppressing the people with laws that would never have had a prayer
of support were it not for the mindless, emotional appeal for the
protection of children. When a government appeals to emotions rather
than reason it indicates a considerable contempt for the intellect of
the governed.

It has been a long-standing tradition of
government that its laws are always enacted and interpreted for its
purposes alone. They virtually never serve to benefit any but the
aims of the lawmakers themselves which is nearly always increased
control. Think and recall, if you can, when the last time a law was
passed that actually made your life noticeably better.

The noted cultural anthropologist Ruth
Benedict once stated that "society is personality writ large." Could
we possibly amend that to read "society is character writ large"?
Upon further consideration of
cause and
effect, the really disturbing issue being discussed here is the
truism that people always have the government they deserve. Perhaps
those in power are, in fact, justified in their contempt of the
reasoning ability of the general populace.

The CDA on face value does not appear
alarming. Do we not, of course, desire to keep the minds of our
children unpolluted from "indecent" material? However, as in all
governmental purposes designed eventually to introduce sweeping
controls over its people, the Devil is in the LACK of details. The
CDA, as in much other governing legislation, makes its definitions so
broadly inclusive as to be interpreted as virtually anything THEY do
not like.

THEY did not like the religion of those at
the Mount Carmel compound of the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas.
Despite, to this day, no credible evidence of their possession of
illegal weapons and only the very thinnest evidence that there was
any danger to the children within, the government decided to use the
tactic of "suspected child abuse" to end the siege. This is the
current and most powerful public relations trump-card the government
possesses for effectively gaining public acceptance of actions that
would be resoundingly condemned were it not for that grandly
effective diversionary. Apparently the U. S. Attorney General did not
consider incinerating children as included within their broad-form
definition of child abuse. Ask anyone how many people were killed,
altogether, in Waco and few can say. Ask them how many children
perished and most can give, if not an exact number, at least a
closely rough estimate.

Also, as in the case of the Freemen
standoff in Montana, the primary public relations argument for the
manner in which it was resolved was "the children" and their safety.

If there had not been a daycare center in
the Oklahoma City Federal
Building, the crime would not have registered in the minds of
most Americans as being nearly as heinous.

Children must certainly be protected. That
is not the issue. The issue is the politicians' increasing use of
them as a human shield to cover their real intent--which has
absolutely nothing to do with child welfare. What it has to do with
is control--and control is effectively obtained when imaginary
threats to our most cherished idols are disturbingly thrust upon our
consciousness, followed by an equally imaginary but apparently viable
solution.

Because the politicians have developed
such a consummate skill for creating these fictitious crises so they
can then present themselves as the only saviour from those crises,
one must wonder where the fire really is from which they claim so
much smoke is arising. The Internet and Worldwide Web, they would
have us believe, is fast becoming a swamp of indecent material, even
to the lowest of evil content: child pornography. The reality of it
is, however, that as with any segment of society, anything considered
indecent must be sought after. It is highly unlikely that children
would ever accidentally have indecent material just appear on their
screen. There are also child pornography laws already in place so
that this low form of pornography is likely not even found on the
Internet. For a child to be successful in searching for such
material, let alone stumble across it accidentally, is stretching
probability to the point of pure fantasy.

Computer networking is the most unique
form of mass communication in human history. Intrinsic to its nature
is its difficulty of control--a concept that terrifies government.
This terror arises from the possibility that anyone of whom they
consider their mindless constituency can now potentially learn what
is really going on in their government.

"As for my
people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my
people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way
of thy paths." Isaiah 3:12

Written 8/96

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